Archive for the "Me Being Domestic" Category

I am woman, hear me roar… Roar in your stupid face if you mess up my clean floor. That was an unintentional rhyme, but let’s just go with it.

I don’t know what it is about a dirty floor that drives me so crazy, except yes I do know exactly what it is about a dirty floor that drives me so crazy.

1) It looks gross.

2) It feels gross.

3) IT IS FREAKING GROSS.

You are walking barefoot through last night’s dinner, the dead skin cells of every person who has stepped foot in your house, your hair, your husband’s hair, your kids’ hair, your pet’s hair (which gags me more than anything else in the universe) and tiny little bug corpses. I’m not even stepping foot in the disgusting imaginary bathroom right now because you all know more than anyone else what is on that floor, especially if you have men/boys living with you.

(psst… it’spee!)

WE HAVE NOW REACHED SOARING HEIGHTS OF GAG

This is the part that confuses me. I love a clean floor, but I HATE to actually clean it. I’m talking raw, angryfist, elbow-throwing, throat-punching hatred. There are several reasons why this is so. You may now enter my world of weirdness…

First of all, the kids and husband don’t stop moving all day, therefore leaving me the lovely time slot of 12am – 6am to complete the task. I guess I could literally lose sleep over a dirty floor, but I’d rather not.

Secondly, it requires me to move my arms, which is not such a bad thing except that rapid arm movement produces ample sweat in the pits. I don’t like to amply sweat unless I’m working out because it causes unnecessary shower-taking and hair-washing, which turns into unnecessary blow drying and styling… which I will have you know is the 2nd most hated thing in all of my life. My day just starts to get out of hand with the whole premature arm-moving thing.

I will, however, do the whole “spot mop” thing with a rag under each foot and pretend like I’m rollerblading through the kitchen 8 times a day, but will not take the actual mop out to just get it done all at once.

Also, if I take the time to clean it properly, I just know someone is going to walk through the room with dripping wet hands (JUSTIN, USE THE HAND TOWEL, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY) or a cup of drippy juice, so I guess I wait until there’s enough build up of miscellaneous drippings before I go insane enough to bust out the mop.

So according to all my weirdnesses, I would have to workout at midnight when everyone is alseep, be gross enough after the workout to take out the mop and use my already-sweaty arms to drag it across the floor, then take a shower and wash all the sweat, sorrows and miscellaneous floor drippings down the drain.

O

C

D

So what usually happens is I wait until the floor is truly horrible and gag-inducing, bad enough to send me into mop rage. I’ll put the kids down for a nap/shut them in their room with cookies if they won’t cooperate (a useful bribery tool), clean the floor at speeds reachable only by the Starship Enterprise, occasionally yell down the hall at the kids to STAY IN THE ROOM UNLESS YOU WANT TO SLIP AND BUST YOUR HEAD OPEN, and then sit down, relax and admire my sparkling floors. Then yell at everyone for the next month that they better not drip anything because I justspent a whole 12 hard minutes cleaning that thing. Rinse, repeat.

WHY do I do this to myself?? And to my family? They’re probably all huddled in one of the bedrooms thinking I’m insane. Or plotting some sort of cruel joke to send me into a hissy fit. “Jack, you go crumble up those Goldfish and sprinkle them down the hall. Make it look like an accident. I’m going to go work on the entry with some mud. She’ll flip out and make that crazy face… it’s going to be hilarious!”

Is it really so bad to just mop once a week? I think everyone has their chore that they absolutely can’t stand and will put off until it drives them nuts.

My name is Morgan and I rage mop. What do you do?

Real I [heart] Mopping shirt available at Zazzle, not that anyone in the history of the world has every purchased it because that would just be psycho. Not that I know anything about what it means to be psycho. Do-do-dooo…

Disclaimer: The following post is sprinkled with the sweetest bits of rage. I apologize in advance… you will soon understand why.

As of this morning, I still had our Christmas tree up in the living room corner. I know, the horror! The shame! Well honey, that is NOTHING compared to three years ago when I left it up until my birthday. Which juuuust happens to be at the end of the month… of February.

This year, I am on the ball and I happen to be very proud of myself. Today, not only did I rip down the tree plus gazillion ornaments and shove them in boxes in under 30 minutes take down the tree and tenderly store away each and every delicate ornament with care, I managed to squeeze in a little craft and a little sprucing up of the apartment.

I saw this tutorial on one of my new favorite blogs, The Prudent Baby, and decided I needed to make one, all quick-like. I just bought this cute green/white fabric that will soon be covering my $15 Craigslist-purchased dining room chairs (freaking adorable and eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! so excited to have them finished!), and have plenty to spare, so a-crafting I went.

It’s blurry, yes… THANK YOU FOR POINTING OUT ALL MY FLAWS.

Here’s the after:

Now, it may look really quick and simple, and you may think you could make one yourself while watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother with your husband sitting patiently on the couch, waiting for you to join him. You may be all, “This will only take a few more minutes babe! It’s going to be sooooo cute, omg I die.” but then two hours later, you’ll be sweating profusely and telling your husband to SIMMER DOWN, I SAID I’M ALMOST DONE! while trying to trim the millions of tiny pieces of thread hanging off the edges because you’re OCD and silently cursing the woman who invented this project in the first place because she is a devil woman with super crafting skills that obviously exceed mine. I mean yours.

If you attempt this, be sure that if your last name starts with a G you PICK ANOTHER LETTER FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY. Justin, why did you have to have such a difficult first letter of your last name? Explain yourself.

This project was a little B (New Years Resolution: use better language — I’m doing remarkably well), but after rearranging some furniture and adding a few more things to the walls, I think it was worth two hours in my own personal corner of hell. It’s pretty freaking adorable.

In decorating Madeline’s room, I tried my hardest to stick to a budget. It was a daily struggle not to spend my paycheck on pretty, frilly, little things on Etsy and at Target, but I actually ended up doing pretty well. I spray painted an old mirror my mom gave me, gladly accepted a hand-me-down rocking chair from my Gram, and was able to find some frugal ways to add little bits of color and cuteness around the room.

I found these irresistible Amy Butler die cuts at Michael’s (of course), popped them in some white picture frames I had up in my closet and voila!

It had to be the quickest and easiest project ever, and they ended up being quite adorable. I still have a nearly-full box of these little goodies, and I can’t wait to find other uses for them!

I also had quite a few of you ask where I bought the bird decals… an Etsy shop called The Cat Place had them a few months ago and they were super affordable, but I don’t see them in the shop anymore. Sadness! If you are dying to get your hands on them, it can’t hurt to ask the owner. They are SO worth it!

Being that I’ve been in a super crafty (and nesty!) mood lately, I figured it was about time to give my little vanity chair a makeover. I’ve never recovered anything, so I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to turn out…

Before:

Stains. Niiiiiiiiice.

After:

Ahh, much better.

A little black spray paint and a major case of trigger finger later (staple guns are serious business, man), I have a much prettier place to sit and put on my makeup.

And umm, I just have to say how incredibly addicting that fabric is. I went back to the fabric store and bought another yard — okay, two yards – of it and covered some cork board (which you can see on the table in the picture), and have been trying to figure out something else to do with the rest because it is just SO DARN CUTE. That was the longest sentence ever. Anyway… Ideas? :)